From September 15-18, the Montana National Guard will be performing a joint exercise with FEMA and NORHTCOM to help coordinate emergency response to natural and manmade disasters. The exercise is one of many regional Vigilant Guard exercises being held by the National Guard this year. The Puerto Rico National Guard finished its Vigilant Guard exercise in March and another round of exercises in Iowa ended in June. These Vigilant Guard exercises are part of a larger, national-level program called Ardent Sentry 2009. Ardent Sentry is conducted by NORTHCOM and NORAD and its major “venues” include not only the Vigilant Guard exercises, but an “AMALGAM DART exercise involving air defense activities at Camp Rilea, Oregon” and “a Nuclear Weapons Incident exercise (NUWAIX) with a U.S. Air Force response near Cheyenne, Wyoming.”

According to the National Guard Bureau, Vigilant Guard “provides an opportunity for National Guard Joint Task Forces and field units to improve command and control, and operational relationships with internal, civilian, and military partners against homeland security threats. The exercise involves all the command elements of Northern Command, National Guard Bureau, Department of Defense, U.S. Transportation Command, Department of Homeland Security and other supporting U.S. government agencies.” The exercises are held regionally on a rotating basis. The National Guard says that “the states, divided into regions, have four opportunities per year to test coordinated tactics, techniques and procedures among state and federal civil and military partners in response to a regional level incident. The desired outcome is an increase in readiness while developing partnerships at all levels to enhance the unity of effort in the future.”

A feature of recent exercises has been foreign military involvement. The Iowa Vigilant Guard exercise involved troops from Mexico, Japan, Australia, South Korea, Bahamas, and Senegal. The Montana Vigilant Guard exercise will include the participation of Kyrgzstan.

In addition to unifying “emergency response” and exercising NORTHCOM’s capacity to command local government in times of crisis, the Vigilant Guard exercises are noteworthy because they are connected to the Vigilant Guardian Exercises that were occurring on the morning of September 11, 2001. The Vigilant Guardian Exercises were also conducted by NORAD and featured scenarios that strangely mimicked real-world events. The 2009 Vigilant Guard Exercises in Montana will focus on a hypothetical earthquake of 7.2 magnitude.

A FOUO//LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE briefing regarding the exercise is available. Two unclassified briefings from the National Guard Bureau and NORTHCOM are also available, one from May 19 and another from June 18.